Moore, who missed 43 votes and had the worst attendance percentage in the Legislature, was in Argentina during the week when the Senate took override votes to reverse Gov. Deval Patrick's budget vetoes.

Moore said he traveled to Argentina as an officer of the National Conference of State Legislatures to share information and help strengthen Argentina's democratic process.

Richardson missed 32 votes, or 13 percent of the roll call votes the House took in 2007, her first year in office.

The freshman legislator was at a leadership conference in Pennsylvania when the House took up budget overrides.

"It's something that I am happy that I was able to attend, but obviously I am very sad that it looks like something not positive by the way that I missed those votes," she said.

Both Moore and Richardson say they had already made their positions clear on the spending measures when they voted for the budget earlier in the year.

Three kidney surgeries caused Rep. Thomas Kennedy, D-Brockton, to have the worst record in the House.

"I take my duties very seriously and I agonize when I miss being at the State House when we're in full formal session," said Kennedy, who didn't want to speculate what nonmedical reasons might make his colleagues miss important votes.

For Sen. Pam Resor, D-Acton, it was singing.

Resor missed 17 votes while traveling to South Africa with the Yale Alumni Chorus during the summer, a traditionally slow season for lawmaking.

Rep. Stephen Tobin, D-Quincy, said he had one of the worst House records because he missed about 20 budget override votes when personal reasons took him away from the State House for two hours.

Tobin, who missed 46 votes this year, said "that was pretty much the only day that I was not in the building. ... In the other 18 years my roll call record has been exemplary."

Tobin, Moore and Resor all had better than 98 percent attendance in 2006.

Republicans claimed the best attendance records - 17 of 24 had perfect attendance, while only 29 of 173 Democrats made it to every vote, according to the Beacon Hill Roll Call.

Like many state lawmakers, Rep. Paul Loscocco, R-Holliston, juggles a family and a job at Boston-based law firm Riemer & Braunstein, but said he maintains his perfect record by putting his legislative duties first.

"If I'm not there to cast a vote that means that 40,000 people have gone unrepresented," he said.

"In my view there isn't another commitment that is more important. ... (Voting) is one of the bare prerequisites of the job and anything else that's done is in addition to your role."